J. Arias scores in the 14th minute as Colombia beat Ghana 1-0

Colombia beat Ghana 1-0 in the 2026 World Cup round of 32. The only goal came in the 14th minute, when J. Arias finished off an assist from L. Suarez. That early strike gave Colombia the lead at half-time, and they held on to it until the final whistle.

There were already changes very early in the match: in the 8th minute, Colombia replaced L. Suarez with J. Cordoba; in the 13th minute, Ghana brought on M. Senaya for A. Seidu. J. Arias was booked in the 12th minute, then scored two minutes later to put Colombia ahead 1-0 at the break.

After the restart, Colombia had another goal ruled out by VAR in the 56th minute for an offside by Luis Díaz, so the score remained 1-0. Both teams continued to make adjustments, with Ghana’s Caleb Yirenkyi, I. Fatawu and A. Seidu all shown yellow cards in the 49th, 66th and 76th minutes respectively. Colombia’s R. Rios was also booked in the 78th minute.

The match statistics were heavily in Colombia’s favor: 61% possession to Ghana’s 39%; expected goals of 2.18 to 0.26; 20 shots to 8; and 8 shots on target to Ghana’s 0. Colombia also completed 91% of their passes compared with Ghana’s 83%, had 3 corners to 2, were caught offside twice to Ghana’s none, made no saves to Ghana’s 7, and committed 14 fouls to Ghana’s 10.

Looking back at the previous round, Colombia drew 0-0 with Portugal in the third group match on 2026-06-27. Ghana lost 1-2 to Croatia in the same round on 2026-06-27.